president barack obama has left hawaii, he left early. the senate is also coming back from its christmas vacation to work on a deal today. sources tell us majority leader harry reid will be pushing a scaled-back version of the fiscal cliff package that president obama laid out last week. that moved the tax hike needle to $400,000. no word on when the house might come back with time ticking away. democrats are hoping the scaled-back plan could get through the house, senate and white house before january 1st. sometime on december 30th, maybe even new year's eve is when they're probably going to get that deal done but let's go to jonathan allen, a senior washington correspondent for politico. the top headline on politico this morning, fiscal cliff deal increasingly unlikely. jonathan, really? >> i think there's a lot of pessimism here in washington. you've got, as you pointed out, five days left. i think the real indicator here is that none of these parties are moving off their position. the senate democrats, the house republicans, the white